Bonnie and Clyde director Arthur Penn dies

Arthur Penn, director of such film classics as Bonnie and Clyde and Little Big Man, died last night, a day after his 88th birthday.

Evan Bell, a friend and business manager of Penn's for 25 years, said in New York today that Penn had been ill for about a year.

A memorial service would be held before the end of the year. Penn's older brother was photographer Irving Penn, who died in October 2009.

After first making his name on Broadway as director of the Tony Award-winning plays The Miracle Worker and All the Way Home, Penn rose as a film director in the 1960s, his work inspired by the decade's political and social upheaval.